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When the robots start thinking for themselves in the movies or on TV, it’s never a good sign for the humans. Whether the setting is Earth or Caprica, letting robots think and giving them weapons is a precursor to human destruction. Fearing such a result, a coalition of NGOs is advocating that the international community ban lethal autonomous weapons systems, which these groups call “killer robots.” It’s a striking phrase, but what exactly is a killer robot? Homing munitions, like torpedoes, incorporate some autonomy and have been in existence since World War II. Today, nearly every modern military uses them. Are they “killer robots”?

As technology advances, it’s important that we recognize the difference between “killer robots” and merely “smart weapons.” It’s a line that some activists have blurred—pushing to ban not just the sci-fi robot warriors of the future, but also the precision-guided munitions that have dramatically reduced civilian casualties in wars over the past 6 decades. Such a move would be a mistake. Precision-guided munitions lie at the heart of efforts to make the use of force safer for civilians and more effective at quickly achieving its objectives.

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Smarter Bombs, Saving Civilians

One of the most significant developments in the twentieth century toward making warfare more humane and reducing civilian casualties came not in the form of a weapon that was banned, but a new weapon that was created: the precision-guided munition. In World War II, in order to have a 90 percent probability of hitting an average-sized target, the United States had to drop over 9,000 bombs, using over 3,000 bombers to conduct the attack. This level of saturation was needed because the bombs themselves were wildly inaccurate, with only a 50/50 chance of landing inside a circle 1.25 miles in diameter. The result was the widespread devastation of cities as nations blanketed each other with bombs, killing tens of thousands of civilians in the process. Aerial warfare was deemed so inhumane, and so inherently indiscriminate, that there were attempts early in the twentieth century to ban bombardment from the air, efforts which obviously failed.

By Vietnam, most US bombs had a 50/50 chance of landing inside an 800-foot diameter circle, a big improvement over 1.25 miles. Even still, over 150 bombs launched from over 40 aircraft were required to hit a standard-sized target. It is not surprising that civilian casualties from air bombing still occurred frequently and in large numbers.

The Gulf War was the first conflict where the use precision-guided weapons entered the public consciousness. Video footage from “smart bombs” replayed on American televisions provided a dramatic demonstration of how far military power had advanced in a half century.

Today, the weapons that the United States and many advanced militaries around the world use are even more precise. Some are even accurate to within 5 feet, meaning targets are destroyed with fewer bombs and, importantly, fewer civilian casualties. Militaries prefer them because they are more effective in destroying the enemy, and human rights groups prefer them because they save civilian lives. In fact, Human Rights Watch recently asserted that the use of unguided munitions in populated areas violates international law.

How Smart is Too Smart?

Lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS) stand in stark contrast to homing munitions and “smart” bombs, which use automation to track onto targets selected by humans. Instead, LAWS would choose their own targets. While simple forms of autonomous weapons are possible today, LAWS generally do not currently exist—and, as far as we know, no country is actively developing them.

Yet fearing that the pace of technological advancement means that the sci-fi future may not be far off, in 2013, NGOs launched a Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. Led by Jody Williams and some of the same activists that led the Ottawa and Oslo treaties banning land mines and cluster munitions, respectively, the Campaign has called for an international ban on autonomous weapons to preempt their development.

The NGO campaign against “killer robots” has generally focused, up to this point, on the autonomous weapons of the future, not the smart bombs of today. Campaign spokespersons have claimed that they are not opposed to automation in general, but only to autonomous weapons that would select and engage targets without human approval.

Recent moves by activists suggest their sights may be shifting, however. Activists have now raised concerns about a number of next-generation precision-guided weapons, including the UK Brimstone missile, the U.S. long-range anti-ship missile (LRASM), and Norway’s Joint Strike Missile. While defense contractors love to pepper the descriptions of their weapons with the word “ autonomous,” emphasizing their advanced features, actual technical descriptions of these weapons indicate that a person selects the targets they are engaging. They’re more like the precision-guided weapons that have saved countless civilian lives over the last generation, not the self-targeting “killer robots” of our nightmares.

Nevertheless, some activists seem to think that these further enhancements to weapons’ accuracy go too far towards creating “killer robots.” Mark Gubrud, of the International Committee for Robotic Arms Control, described LRASM in a recent New York Times article as “pretty sophisticated stuff that I would call artificial intelligence outside human control.” Similarly, the Norwegian Peace League, a member of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, has spoken out against development of the Joint Strike Missile.

The Wrong Target

Are activists genuinely opposed to increased automation in any form, even if humans are choosing the targets? Defining the precision-guided munitions used by countries around the world as the same thing as the Terminator-style robots of the movies is a mistake. We, as a civilized society, want weapons technology to continue to improve to be more precise and humane.

Leaders in next-generation military unmanned systems, like France, the United Kingdom and the United States, have shown a surprising willingness to engage the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. Recognizing that fully autonomous weapons raise challenging issues, the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), a United Nations forum for states to discuss weapons-related issues, has held talks on autonomous weapons, and just last week, the CCW agreed to hold a second round of discussions on lethal autonomous weapons next spring.

This international dialogue has hinged, however, on the understanding that what is on the table for discussion are not today’s precision-guided weapons, but potential future self-targeting autonomous weapons. An expansion of the agenda to include precision-guided weapons would most likely end CCW discussions. NGOs could try to launch an independent effort to ban the technology, as they did with land mines and cluster munitions. Unlike those campaigns, however, if the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots decides to strike out on their own in an attempt to ban existing precision-guided weapons, they are unlikely to find serious state partners.

Even if they could achieve a ban, however, eliminating precision-guided weapons with any degree of automation would likely have the opposite effect to that desired by activists—it would increase civilian suffering in war, and not just because of the immediate effects of less-accurate bombs.

As weapons have become more precise, social norms about what level of civilian casualties are acceptable in war have shifted as well. Today, we debate about whether even one or two civilian casualties, in the context of a drone strike, is too many. It’s a valid discussion, but it is also striking in contrast to the massive devastation wrought on Dresden, Hamburg, London, Tokyo and many other cities in World War II when tens of thousands of civilians were killed with unguided weapons. We should celebrate the progress we’ve made.

The scrutiny that activists bring to bear on new weapons is useful because it helps us think about the functions and consequences of new weapons. Autonomous weapons that would select their own targets do raise serious issues worthy of further debate, but knee-jerk reactions to any new degree of autonomy are likely to do more harm than good. Ultimately, such protests could deprive the world of a key means of reducing civilian casualties in war.